ASUNCIÓN, Mar 11 (IPS) – Despite a push in the past ten years for more female representation and #MeToo movements highlighting the abuse that women have faced for centuries, women’s struggles continue to remain invisible—dismissed, denied, and buried under patriarchal bureaucracy.
Data collected on gender-based violence and poverty remove women’s experiences from the story and often fail to reflect the lived reality of millions. But what if women themselves could shape the data that drives policy? What if their experiences were not just numbers but undeniable evidence?
At Red Dot Foundation and the Poverty Stoplight, we believe in the power of stories—when collected at scale, they become more than personal accounts; they form undeniable proof of systemic issues.
Through Safecity, Red Dot’s global crowdsourced platform, we enable individuals to anonymously report incidents of sexual and gender-based violence in public and private spaces.
These reports are mapped as hot spots, revealing patterns that challenge official crime statistics, expose hidden dangers, and, most importantly, demand action. Thus far we have collected 86,000 unique incidents from over 86 countries indicating a global problem.
The Poverty Stoplight is the world’s leading crowdsourced big data platform of self-reported multidimensional poverty and inequality data.
The Stoplight has crowdsourced over 700,000 poverty self-assessments from more than 520,000 families in some 60 countries and 24 languages. With this type of detailed, georeferenced, longitudinal dataset, we have the possibility to lay bare practical insights about poverty and inequality, reflecting the diverse lived experiences of women across various communities.
When thinking about the potential of these worldwide poverty efforts to bridge growing levels of discontent and spur a more compassionate social contract as Minouche Shafik speaks on in What We Owe Each Other, we can begin to address the decades-long epistemic injustice that excludes individuals, particularly women and other minorities, from conversations about their own conditions of persistent inequality.
Shifting Power: When Data Comes from the Margins
Traditional data collection methods often exclude those most affected—survivors of violence who fear retribution, women in informal economies whose struggles aren’t officially counted, or communities whose realities don’t fit neatly into existing policy frameworks.
Crowdsourced data shifts this power imbalance. It allows individuals to define their own narratives rather than being defined by institutions that often fail them.
In India, the gap between reported and actual cases of sexual violence is staggering. Official police data only scratches the surface because 80% of survivors choose not to report sexual and gender based violence. Cultural stigma and distrust of law enforcement prevent many from coming forward.
But when women anonymously share their stories on Safecity, patterns emerge—identifying unsafe areas, common patterns of perpetrators, and overlooked threats. This data has led to changes in police patrolling strategies, urban design improvements, and gender-sensitive policy implementations in cities and towns across India and beyond.
Similarly, the Stoplight’s work in poverty mapping follows the same principle—shifting the lens from broad, institutional statistics to real, grassroots-level data that captures the lived experiences of those in poverty.
Whether it’s gender-based violence or economic exclusion, we see a common theme: when people become data creators rather than passive subjects, they reclaim power over their lives and their futures.
The type of insights we garner from the Poverty Stoplight global data have the power to enable the design and enactment of time-effective policies to reach the heart of inequality through targeted interventions and ad hoc solutions.
Using the Stoplight Platform grants us this possibility for its up-to-date information available in real time. In a nutshell, if we strive to take stock of Poverty Stoplight data, we can transform micro-level data points into macro-level intelligence to improve our understanding of structural inequality and its underlying mechanisms, intersectionality, and ongoing narratives.
Veritably, our Global South-based crowdsourced platforms at Red Dot and the Stoplight can allow us to unearth hidden trends, discern seemingly paradoxical insights, build effective interventions, and design strategies tailored to the unique circumstances of each woman, family, and community.
Data-Driven Activism: Turning Insights into Impact
The true power of crowdsourced data lies in what happens next. Numbers alone don’t change the world—action does.
At Red Dot Foundation, we work with law enforcement, policymakers, and local communities to turn anonymous reports into structural change. For example:
- In Faridabad, working with the police, we identified hotspots of harassment, leading to increased patrolling in certain areas, changes in patrolling timings in others, and a deeper understanding of women’s daily realities.
- In Chennai, through the Gender Lab, we identified bus stops that are harassment zones, prompting discussions on safer public transport solutions.
- In Satara district, we are working with educational institutions, children, and parents to create inclusive spaces and transport, ensuring safer commutes for students traveling from remote villages to schools.
Women’s safety audits have led to better-lit streets, safer transportation, and increased trust between citizens and authorities. In cities where our data is used, women have reported feeling more confident navigating public spaces.
The same applies to multidimensional poverty mapping via the Poverty Stoplight. Once the families themselves identify the dimensions they are considered to be poor in, they create an action plan, sometimes working as a household and sometimes as a community. To name but a few examples from Paraguay alone:
- In rural regions of Paraguay in 2024, domestic violence reports went up due to the Poverty Stoplight highlighting and educating women on what domestic violence is, that it’s not acceptable, and how to report it. This was the first step in eliminating domestic violence by bringing it to light and empowering women to report it.
- Women in the community of Repatriación, Arroyito, Chakore used their Stoplight data to recognize environmental pollution as a critical issue that impacts their wellbeing and took action against a local starch factory that had been affecting their quality of life for years. Through organized meetings, petitions, and protests, they persisted despite initial inaction from authorities, ultimately securing a resolution by directly engaging with the factory owner. Their efforts paid off, transforming their community into a cleaner and healthier space.
- A woman in San Pedro, recognizing the lack of drinking water in her neighborhood through the Stoplight, organized her neighbors to form a water commission and advocate for a solution. Initially, they secured a tanker truck from the government, but it only provided non-drinking water, prompting them to push further for a permanent fix. Through collective efforts, financial contributions, and municipal support, they successfully drilled an artesian well, ensuring access to clean water for their community.
When communities collect and access their data, they have the tools to demand better services, fairer wages, and greater economic opportunities. Information is a form of resistance—a way to challenge the status quo and advocate for justice.
All data collection from both organizations maintains strict international and local data privacy regulations, and whether anonymous or individually verifiable, the dataset identifies patterns and trends that serve as starting points for dialogue, investigation, and ingenious community-driven solutions with the potential to sustain over time.
A Future Where Women’s Voices Shape Policy
The fight for gender equality cannot be won in isolation. Sexual violence and economic exclusion are deeply intertwined—poverty increases women’s vulnerability, while gender-based violence limits their ability to access education, jobs, and public life. By combining our efforts, we can build a world where women’s voices shape policies, where data is not a cold statistic but a powerful force for equity, and where every woman’s story counts—not just in International Women’s Month, but every single day.
The question is: Are we ready to listen?
ElsaMarie D’Silva is the Founder of Red Dot Foundation and creator of Safecity, a platform crowdsourcing sexual violence reports. She cofounded the Brave Movement and is a recognized global leader in gender advocacy and social justice. She is a Senior Fellow at the Aspen Global Innovators Group.
Julia Corvalán, PhD, is a social changemaker and wayfinding strategist, currently serving as Global Operations Manager at PovertyStoplight.org at Fundacion Paraguaya, Paraguay’s leading social enterprise. She is a Senior Fellow at the Aspen Global Innovators Group.
© Inter Press Service (2025) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service
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